Fincons at IBC2018 Fincons partners with Mediaset to enable a new era of Audience Engagement and Monetization Leveraging groundbreaking interactive video and advertising stacks, the system integrator supports the broadcaster meeting its ambitious goals. MILAN, ITALY, 13th September 2018: Fincons, the international leading IT business consulting company, announces the launch of Mediaset Play, the novel live and on demand online streaming service of Mediaset, Italy’s largest free to air commercial broadcaster. Acting as business consulting and as prime contractor and system integrator of leading platforms provided by international suppliers, Fincons supported Mediaset to launch their new generation of OTT TV and to combine it with leading edge interactivity models recently enabled on Smart TV. Mediaset Play enhances the broadcaster content distribution strategy with a new OTT TV covering Linear and AVOD and which guarantees a brand new and compelling user experience on the web, iOS, Android and Smart TV. When referring to Smart TV, the combination of linear and on demand distribution enables new interactivity models, significantly enhancing the user engagement and participation. Maurizio Galli, CTO at Mediaset, commented: “We engaged Fincons as lead system integrator for this innovative initiatives, to benefit from their proven capability to adapt leading worldwide platforms to our specific needs, as also to contribute to the smooth integration with several legacy systems, required to implement the underlying business processes optimization.” The strength of this convergence between broadcast and broadband distribution become even more evident for what regards the enabling of revolutionary advertising models. Mediaset Play’s recent launch follows the earlier launch of ADD+, the new generation of advertising products created by Publitalia‘80 (Mediaset Saleshouse) with Fincons contribution to design and implement the enabling Adtech solution. Leveraging Smart TV capabilities and HbbTV broadcast‐broadband convergence standard, ADD+ enables new Interactive and Addressable TV Advertising models, across all Mediaset’s portfolio of linear channels, on demand channels, web sites and mobile apps. Paola Colombo, General Manager Adtech & Business Development at Publitalia’80 says: “The collaboration with Fincons allowed Publitalia to offer advertisers a revolutionary and successful proposition which has been delivering real tangible results. We are working with Fincons to further develop the ADD+ family of products, following the enthusiasm of our advertisers who first leveraged the new video formats and who appreciated the positive feedback received from our audience.” The first test bench of Mediaset Play innovative solution has been the recent FIFA World Cup in Russia, for which Mediaset detained exclusive broadcasting rights. Mediaset users on Smart TV were enabled to interact during the football matches, to have on demand access to real‐time produced highlights and to additional ondemand content. The event reached near 300 million audience and 35 million views online and on mobile. Smart TV content fruition enriched with the interactive HbbTV app, generated greater user engagement and increased adv selling through this trendsetting channel. Francesco Moretti, Deputy CEO at Fincons declared: “We are proud to have helped Mediaset reaching success in this innovative initiatives, which will enable new business models with still an high potential to be unleashed. This project is the further confirmation of our long‐standing relationship with Mediaset, which over the years has facilitated the development of new pioneering solutions, starting from R&D right through commercialisation.” About Mediaset: The Mediaset Group, the leading commercial television operator in Italy and Spain, is one of Europe’s biggest media companies. Mediaset Italia has been listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1996, and Mediaset España on the Madrid Stock exchange since 2004. The group’s core business is generalist commercial TV: in Italy, Mediaset has three national channels, Canale 5, Italia 1 and Retequattro, while in Spain, the group owns the two national channels Telecinco and Cuatro. In recent years Mediaset has launched ten new free‐to‐air thematic channels in Italy: Iris, 20, Focus, La5, Mediaset Italia2, Mediaset Extra, Top Crime, Boing, Cartoonito and the all‐news channel TgCom24. In 2008 Mediaset founded “Mediaset Premium”, an innovative pay‐TV channel, offering the best premium content, and in December 2013, it launched “Infinity”, an online video streaming service that makes available over 6000 movies , fiction and TV series over the web. In 2016 Mediaset debuted in radio publishing business. The new RadioMediaset society includes R101, Radio 105, Virgin Radio, Radio Montecarlo and Radio Subasio. RadioMediaset is already the first radio group in Italy. About Fincons: Fincons is an award‐winning professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations to a diverse range of industries. In the Media sector Fincons has long term and successful relationships with TIER‐1 clients, providing solutions and ICT services covering the entire Digital Supply Chain, from Rights Management, Programming and Scheduling, Advertising Sales and Omnichannel Video Delivery. With 35 years of experience in IT Business Consulting and System Integration, Fincons Group has offices in Italy, Switzerland, UK and US, 1300 employees and more than 100 million Euros revenues. For more information, visit www.finconsgroup.com .